My Official Notice of Grievances
These are not pet peeves that I am about to attack. Pet peeves are personal to each of us, like the sound of gum chewing, leaving the toilet seat up, or staring at your phone during dinner. These bother some people (a great deal) and others not so much. They can be annoying as hell, but typically can be addressed at the source. I am going for something much bigger. Societal peeves! There are things wrong in our society that must be addressed. It’s time for a revolution. Therefore, in the city of West Chester, on this date, I hereby submit my Official Notice of Grievances. Our Nation’s Vexations, if you prefer. Just not complaints, because those would only go to a complaint department and be buried in the mold of bureaucracy. These are the things I would change if I were king for a day, but I do not believe in kings. I would also suggest that if we could land a man on the moon, then we can fix all these, except that is so dated and more than that, we have also already landed on Mars, and I don’t think anyone even noticed.
These are all somewhere between a four and a six on the pain scale. Okay, Fraud is a ten. So, without further ado (which strikes me odd since the “further ado,” is in fact right there, with this sentence), here is my list. Feel free to share with your elected officials.
1. Consistent technology. I have only just begun and this one has four separate sections.
a. ATMs. They should all be designed the same way, asking the same questions, in the same order. The one at my Giant Supermarket asks eleven questions before I can get my money and then it charges me $3.50. It should be paying me.
b. Payment Terminals. Also called Electronic Point of Sale (EPOS) and Pin Pads. They can’t even decide on a name let alone how they should work. Some of them now add an additional question asking you to “Okay” everything you already told it. It’s like Who Wants to Be a Millionaire’s, Is this your final answer? The one at Walgreens makes you put your card upside down from everyone else!? What genius came up with that? And I have lost count of how many times I have been told to tap my card somewhere other than where the icon is for that very purpose because it is finicky. Enough.
c. Phone Chargers and Cubes. First, they should always give you the option to buy them together. That way you know they will (hopefully) work together. But more than that, let’s just decide on one shape and size for all devices. I don’t even care which shape you pick. We can start here in our country and work to expand later. Not to mention, do they hire gremlins to come into our homes and steal them? As God is my witness!
d. Media Streaming Menus. I have no problem with Netflix, Hulu, Prime, et al having different content. That’s cool. But Netflix and Prime both show us a bit of the show as we scroll over it, but with Hulu it is crickets until you click and commit. That can’t be proprietary. Let’s make it simple and consistent for the viewing audience. And am I the only one who thinks it is fishy that a lame movie from seven years ago is always trending? C’mon already.
2. Self-Check-Out / Check-in. I get that there are some arguments on both sides. Technology blah blah. Saving money. Yadda Yadda. Unless unemployment is at 0%, there is someone for that job. And more often lately, you really don’t get a choice. You will find one cashier and seven self-checkouts, and they bully you to avoid the long line at the human. The line should be making it clear what humans want – other humans. The other day I went into a Dunkin Donut, and I had to check-in my order. I couldn’t find some of the things I was looking for and when I asked the computer out loud it just stared at me. Rude.
3. Junk Mail / Spam. This happens in the real mailbox as well as the electronic. Can’t we make a simple rule in both cases that you have to opt in? At least let us opt out. It really grates at me when I scroll all the way to the bottom to unsubscribe and they ask me more questions. Take a hint. Especially since I never subscribed to most of them in the first place.
4. Background Music on Sports Radio. If you don’t listen, you don’t know. But more and more when I listen to Sports Talk Radio, they are playing music in the background. Some just do it for a while, but a few keep it going through a whole segment. Did they actually have audience members call in and say, you know, the sports insights are great and all, but if you could overlay that with some crappy elevator music, that would be sweet.
5. Going Slow in the Passing Lane. Three lanes going in the same direction. The left lane is for passing, the middle is traveling, and the right is the slow lane. I’m an easy guy. Do whatever you want with the middle and the right lane, but for goodness’ sake, stay out of the left passing lane unless you are, you know, passing. This should not be hard. Driver’s Education teaches students to stay right unless passing. Let’s give out more tickets to violators. Oh, and I already know that one of you are going to argue with me on this one. Don’t bother. You are not in the majority and my grievances have already been officially filed.
6. Automated Customer Service Lines. Answering your valued customers with an automated phone line is, by its very nature and conception, not customer service. It is corporate convenience. It is also a manipulation to try and make us give up. No more, I say! I will pay more for companies that make it easier to get to a human. And remember, unemployment is not at 0%.
7. Airplane Seat Recliners. Some of you think that you can recline regardless of the impact on the person behind you. Others think that the person reclining into you is rude. Personally, I never recline nor gripe about those who do. But this has never been the fault of the passengers. Airlines should either make enough room, so it works, or eliminate the functional option. If only I were king for a day.
8. Toothpaste dispensers. Really? We can put a machine on Mars (yes, we did), but we can’t design a dispenser that doesn’t get all messy and gunky? Let the Shark Tank bite into that one. Okay, maybe this one is just an OCD pet peeve of mine, but it’s my list of grievances.
9. Opening Medicine. I try to picture the discussion in the design and manufacturing board rooms. “Hey Edward, it would be just as cheap and simple to make medicine easy to open, like, I don’t know, pickles. But just for shits and grins, why don’t we make it really difficult so sick and old people can struggle. That’ll show them who’s boss.”
10. Fine Print. Not so fine in my book. I admit I wear glasses, but that brings my sight back to 20/20. Yet, I still have to move the product under a bright light, grab the magnifying glass from the kitchen junk drawer, and still squint my eyes until I have to pee a little bit. Can we all agree to a minimum 12-point font? Especially since the fine print is usually the important stuff that they are trying to hide from us.
11. Fraud. This is a tough one, wildly pervasive, and not easy to fix. But I would be willing to be taxed a little more for better protection. Did you know there is an IRS.Com website that is not connected to or approved by IRS.Gov? Just one example of millions. I use that example because shouldn’t we live in a society where our government can shut that down? My bank account has been a victim of fraud three times in the last 18 months. They target people 60-years old and older even more than the rest of the nation. That is sad and shameful. There should be a Fraud Protection Bureau and they should hire Olivia Benson from Law and Order SVU. I have always had a crush on her.
12. Human Confirmation. Isn’t it ironic that computers force us humans to prove that we are not robots. One of them is called CAPTCHA, where they ask us to type the squiggly phrase above that we can’t read. Another version asks us to click on the pictures that have flowers (or some other crap). It is so stressful when I think one of them is actually a plant and I don’t know how to answer. Um, simple solution – have a human ask me if I am a human.
13. Batteries Life Span. They say that they are almost at a breakthrough to make batteries last nearly forever. What they don’t tell you is that was actually invented in the 1950’s and the battery makers bought the patent and destroyed it so they could continue making a profit through planned obsolescence. Those bastards. I just don’t have the energy.
14. Click Bait. I actually don’t mind if you tease me into clicking. Just pay up when I do. It is not cool to tease without the reward. And it is getting worse. It used to just be social media with an alluring photo you never get to see the likes of again. Now, real news articles are doing it. That’s not a healthy trend.
15. Help Desks. If they don’t help, can we simply stop calling them that? Let’s just call them Desks.
16. Plastic Water Bottles. It is a scam. They are not safer than tap water. They are more expensive than tap water. And they are bad for the environment. Let’s take this a step further. Humans born on planet earth should not ever have to pay for the water that the planet provides us. The water should belong to all of us, free of charge.
17. Artificial Intelligence. I get that this one is a mixed bag. AI has the potential to accomplish life-saving tasks. AI is inevitable. But geez, there are a bunch of hurdles, gaps, missteps, and necessary cautions. Just today I heard on social media of a gift being offered by a reputable company and talked about by known national entertainers, free for only the price of shipping. But it was all AI and a scam. I saved this one for last because it is emerging and developing before our eyes. Now is the time to address it. Otherwise, it will become far more dangerous than the messed-up pin pads at self-checkout while you are buying bottled water to take home and watch Hulu if you can find the right show and your remote battery does not die.
I wrote this. I am a human. Let’s see if AI can write it better. Some of these resonated with you. Some did not. Some of you have additions to the list. Some of you have already found a cool toothpaste. Alas, I am not king for a day. I’m just a guy. And this is my Official Notice of Grievances.
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Stoneking Strategic Communications (SSC) 